1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an infrared sensor and a heat sensing element.
2. Related Art
An infrared sensor is divided into a quantum type and a heat type by a detection principle. The heat type of the two types attracts attention from the viewpoint of exclusion of cooling for noise measures. For example, a bolometer type which is one of the heat types detects infrared light using temperature dependence of a resistance value, and is widely used in an uncooled type of infrared element. Such a bolometer type of infrared sensor includes a heat sensing element.
Recently, from the viewpoint of high sensitivity, a high response characteristic, or the like, the size of one pixel of a bolometer material in the infrared sensor has been considerably small, and the material has been desired to be formed as a thin film. Therefore, as the bolometer material, an infrared sensor which uses a vanadium oxide thin film has been proposed (refer to JP-A-9-257565).
However, there is a problem in that when a vanadium oxide thin film described in JP-A-9-257565 is used, it is difficult to realize good sensitivity of an infrared sensor.